ANAHEIM  As the team they came to root for sat in a circle around their coach during a timeout with just less than 2½ minutes to play, trailing by five points, the pockets of people in red-and-(mostly)-black seated around the Honda Center began to rise and be heard.

The chant was brief but emphatic.

I believe that we will win

The San Diego State basketball team would not win, would not make history by becoming the first Aztecs team to go to the NCAA Tournament’s Elite Eight.

The Aztecs on Thursday night did almost everything they needed to for almost as long as necessary.

It was not enough to move on but had to have been enough to permanently change a culture -- and not just of a program or a campus or a legion of diehards but a city’s sporting faith.

State’s 70-64 loss Thursday night to Arizona in the Sweet Sixteen of the NCAA Tournament changes nothing, except to signal once and for all that expectations have changed.

“Our goal was to win a national championship this year,” junior forward J.J. O’Brien said softly, wiping at red eyes more than once. “We were capable of it. That’s our goal every year. We had a national championship-caliber team this year. We’re going to have a national-championship caliber team next year. That’s where the program is at.”

Arizona, a perennial power and the top seed in the West Regional, trailed for almost the equivalent of a full half in the middle of Thursday’s game and left impressed.

“This was our 37th game, and that was the most physical, hard-fought game of our season,” Wildcats coach Sean Miller said. “San Diego State really set the tone. Their physicality, their athleticism, their toughness . . . but we knew that about them.”

So do the rest of us.

Our appreciation for what happened over the past five months must not dissipate over the next five. In fact, we must allow our admiration and enjoyment for what they’ve done (and will do) to grow.

San Diego owes a gigantic thank you to this team that played to every bit of its ability and then some -- and showed us that no longer is it to be surprising that SDSU can hang with the elite, even if it’s not quite Elite Eight material just yet.

Yes, all of a sudden, we believe that they will win.

That’s why the Honda Center was so full of those cheering for the Aztecs. More than half of those aligned with one team or the other were doing so.

Arizona took its first lead of the second half, 50-49, with seven minutes, 48 seconds to play. The Wildcats, who shot 37 percent in the first half but 61.9 percent in the second half, hadn’t led for 19½ minutes.

The Aztecs (31-5) would tie the game but never lead again.

A run to as far as any SDSU team has lasted came to a grinding halt of forced fouls and hurried shots.

At the half, State had outrebounded the Wildcats 24-14 and held Pac-12 Player of the Year Nick Johnson scoreless on seven shots. Johnson would finish with 14 points, 10 of them on perfect free throw shooting over the final 91 seconds.

The end left most of the Aztecs in tears.

“It’s hard at the moment to look back and reflect and appreciate when you believe you should have won,” O’Brien said.

The unique thing about college basketball is the inherent understanding that just 68 of the 350 Division I teams makes the NCAA Tournament. To be one of the final 16 from among that group satisfies the threshold of success.

This was SDSU's fifth straight NCAA Tournament appearance, their second Sweet Sixteen in four years. That's success.

That said …

This may be the last time we think making it this far is sweet enough.

The thing about raising expectations is they are not like tides. One they’re up, they don’t come down.

Fisher’s Fab Four is coming for 2014-15, and San Diego should be ready for and expecting more of this.

“I do think now that we have a perception nationally of ‘Hey, they’re good,’ ” said Aztecs Head Coach Steve Fisher. “I like that. Our players like that. I think a good pressure of expectations is now on our program.”